AUSTRALIAN UNION OF STUDENTS
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SUMMARY
Students who get high marks should get higher pay than students who get low marks.
Students should get a twelve-week paid overseas trip as part of their course.
The Australian Union of Students is a voluntary student association, that is required by its Constitution to support family values and the free enterprise system, and to encourage students to become more employable. Membership of our association is open to all Australian students, apprentices and trainees, including university students and TAFE students, overseas students studying in Australia, and Year 10, Year 11 and Year12 school students. The Australian Union of Students intends to compete with the National Union of Students Inc., and to become the dominant student association in Australia.
Since our association's inception in 1993, it has been subject to a total news blackout by what the Malaysian Prime Minister correctly calls "the lying Australian media". We have only received publicity since 1996 when we established our Internet site. This was despite our bringing a class action in the Federal Court in 1994 on behalf of some 500,000 students receiving Austudy, to require the Australian Government to reconsider a decision not to set up a Payroll Deduction System from Austudy. This Payroll Deduction System would have allowed students to join our association, the Wilderness Society, Amnesty International, and health insurance funds, by ticking boxes on their Austudy application forms. We lost the case for the same reason that the Queensland Government lost the Mabo case; due to what is euphemistically called "judicial activism" when it happens in Australia, and other more blunt expressions when it happens in Asian countries.
Aside from this, we have made a number of submissions to the Australian Government: in response to the Green Paper on Unemployment; in response to the inquiry into Civics Education in Australia; concerning Australia's National Security; and concerning the current Native Title crisis. Currently we have an application pending before the Australian Competition Tribunal under Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act, to again try to get the Australian Government to set up a payroll deduction system from Austudy. We are planning a similar application to compel universities to provide our association with the same privileges as they provide to their own student associations. This will mean that, when students enrol at university every year, they will be able to elect to have their student association fees paid to our association.
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The Australian Union of Students would like to see similar income support arrangements for university students as the income support arrangements for technical and further education students. Prospective university students should have to get jobs as apprentices, and should be paid salaries while attending university. This arrangement would have two advantages over the existing Austudy system. First it would eliminate trendy courses that waste taxpayers' money and contribute nothing to the Australian economy and Australian culture. Secondly, apprentices have a much better economic and social status than students on Austudy.
It has been argued that employers should not have to pay salaries to apprentices, as employers are providing apprentices with a valuable service. On the other hand it has been argued that apprentices do useful work, and so should be paid for the work. We say that both points of view are correct. Employers are indeed providing apprentices with a valuable service, and apprentices indeed do useful work, even when they are attending classes and not doing anything for the employer. The question should be, not whether apprentices do useful work when they are attending classes, but whether it is expedient for employers to pay them to attend classes.
We say that paying apprentices and students for attending classes will lead to the kind of economy and society that Australians want. On the other hand charging tuition fees to apprentices and students is a recipe for economic and social disaster. To see why this is so, we have to compare the position of an apprentice receiving a salary or wage to that of a student receiving Austudy. An apprentice is financially independent, doesn't have to sponge off his parents, doesn't have to go without the necessities of life, has a job, and has a niche in society. A student on Austudy, on the other hand, is dependent on government and parental handouts, lives in poverty, and is in the same social category as unemployed no-hopers. The only thing that a student on Austudy has going for him/her is that this period of degradation will hopefully only be temporary.
It is not true that apprentices don't pay for their education. Their tuition fees are paid by governments, which get their revenues from taxes levied on current and former apprentices. One way or another, apprentices eventually pay for their education. And if university students were apprentices, they would also eventually pay for their education, one way or another.
Any worthwhile university course is capable of being turned into an apprenticeship. Law students can become police cadets, and serve on the beat during university vacations. Medical students can get apprenticeships with hospitals, and work as nurses and ambulance officers during the vacations. Students of "Classics" (that is, the Latin and Greek languages, and ancient Roman and Greek history and culture) can become apprentice teachers. Music students can get an apprenticeship with an orchestra.
Some employers at present have apprenticeship arrangements with university students. These arrangements are usually called cadetships. Cadetships are rare, because of the difficulty of the employer recovering the cost of training a university student. There is nothing to stop the student going to work for another employer before the original employer has recovered the cost of the training.
In a perfectly free market, a firm would not be able to poach an apprentice from another firm. Such poaching would amount to stealing the money that the firm has invested in training the apprentice. A free market can only operate if stealing is not allowed. In Australian society, however, poaching employees is regarded as socially acceptable. The public would not accept a situation where an employee was tied to a particular firm.
This imperfection in the Australian labour market means that government intervention is needed to restore the proper functioning of the market. This intervention consists of government subsidies of apprenticeships. Instead of a firm investing money in an apprentice, the government would invest the money. In other words, in return for the right to poach apprentices, firms have to pay higher taxes.
The apprenticeship arrangement we propose should apply to all tertiary education, not just higher education. Tertiary educational institutions should charge a tuition fee of whatever amount they see fit. Employers should have to pay a student's tuition fee, pay the student a salary or wage, and provide the student with work experience when the student is not attending classes. The Australian Government should give employers tax credits for employing apprentices, so that in practice an employer only ends up paying for work done by the student that the employer profits from.
The Australian Government should set up a Commonwealth Apprenticeship Service (CAS) to match students with tertiary institutions and employers and to authorise tax credits for employers. Students, employers and tertiary institutions will indicate their preferences to the CAS. The CAS will provide each employer and tertiary institution with a list of students who meet their criteria. Employers and tertiary institutions will interview students on the list, rate them as acceptable or unacceptable, and rank the acceptable students in order of preference. The CAS will then assign students to employers and tertiary institutions in such a way as to please everyone as far as possible.
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If Australia is to become a wealthy country, we need university graduates who are able to solve problems effortlessly within their field of expertise. At present, our universities are turning out graduates who can solve problems only with great difficulty and only when they are forced to do so. Such people can pay their way, but they cannot generate the sort of wealth that this country needs. To get graduates who can solve problems effortlessly, we need to get graduates to do countless tutorial problems, to the point where problem-solving becomes effortless.
There is no better way that a young person can spend his/her time than by doing a tutorial problem. Whenever a student does a tutorial problem, God must rub His hands with glee and say, "You beauty!" Unfortunately, with the way that most students have been indoctrinated at school, they will not do countless tutorial problems just because it is in their own best interest, or because it is their duty as a good citizen. The only inducement that will motivate students to do the countless tutorial problems that we need them to do is a financial incentive.
Giving a bonus to the student who comes top of the class is not a worthwhile financial incentive. Take the case of a class of 500 first-year medical students. The chance of a student becoming top of the class is so slight that it is not worth the effort. On the other hand, there is a realistic chance for any student to get in the top 50% of the class, and there is a realistic chance for very able students to get in the top 25% of the class. The Australian Union of Students would like to see students who get in the top 50% of their class get a bonus of $5000 a year, and students who get in the top 25% of their class get an additional bonus of $5000 a year. We would also like the highest paid students to be paid the same as they could expect to be paid when they graduate.
Consider for example a class of law students who are employed as police cadets. Students in the bottom 50% of the class academically would be paid $20,000 a year, students in the top 50% of the class, but not in the top 25%, would be paid $25,000 a year, and students in the top 25% of the class would be paid $30,000 a year. Graduates would work as police for two years and would be paid $30,000 a year, then could become solicitors or continue in the police.
A student's bonus for getting high marks should be paid by the employer, but the employer should be reimbursed by the Australian Government in the form of a tax credit or subsidy. This is necessary as otherwise employers will put pressure on apprentices to get low marks. These financial incentives will be quite costly, but the resulting increase in effort by students, and the effect on the economy, will be astronomical by comparison.
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Overseas travel is a necessary part of a student's education. The Australian Union of Students seeks that employers provide a twelve-week paid overseas trip to each apprentice and that the cost of this be reimbursed by the Australian Government. Students will ultimately repay the cost of the trip when they become taxpayers, just as they will repay the cost of other aspects of their education.
The cost of an overseas trip is small in comparison to what the Australian Government spends on a student's education. The Government can further reduce the cost by insisting that students stay only in approved backpackers' accommodation and travel only standby on approved carriers. In the end it will not cost much more than having students stay in Australia and paying them Austudy. If the Government stopped funding useless trendy courses such as natural medicine, it would be able to pay for overseas trips.
Some might say that students should work for a few years, save up the money, and then take extended leave and go for an overseas trip. This is often difficult because of family and work commitments. A couple cannot very well leave their children with relatives and go on a backpacking tour of the world. A family man cannot very well take his children along with him to the summit of some mountain in South America. The best time for people to see the world is when they are in their teens, as part of their formal education.
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Education in Australia is financed on the basis that the Australian Government pays a large part of the cost and recovers this from former students as taxes. As a result, students end up paying for their education. The loophole in the system is that people can leave the country and escape their moral obligation to reimburse the Australian Government. This rort should be closed by requiring people to sign an agreement to pay back their education expenses if they go overseas. The agreement can be worded so as to be legally enforcable in any country of the world. The Australian Taxation Office can then hire overseas debt collection agencies to secure regular instalments from expatriate Australians.
The Australian Government can make it a condition of subsidising courses at schools and tertiary institutions that an institution require each student to enter into the agreement. Signing the agreement can also be a condition for receiving social security and Medicare payments. The Australian Government can also refuse to allow Australians to enter or leave the country, and refuse to issue or renew passports for Australians, unless they sign the agreement.
Such an agreement will not be binding on Australians who have already left the country for good. To ensure that they meet their moral obligation, the Australian Government should enter into a series of treaties with overseas countries. Under these treaties, a country would levy a tax on resident expatriate Australians, which it would collect and pay to the Australian Government. In return, the Australian Government would levy a similar tax on expatriates from other countries living in Australia. The Australian Government might not be able to get Christopher Skase to pay his creditors, but it should be able to get him to pay for his education.
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In the view of the Australian Union of Students, a university is a place for discovering and teaching knowledge and skills. It is not a place for spreading opinions and propaganda. In the United States there are many institutions calling themselves universities, that we would not consider proper universities. Most of these institutions are run by Christian fundementalists, and the most notorious is the Oral Roberts University. These so-called universities teach that the Theory of Evolution is untrue, and that the world was created as described in the Bible.
While Australian universities don't teach creationism, they are nevertheless as bad as the Oral Roberts University. Australian universities spread what the Australian Union of Students terms "mind-viruses". A mind-virus is similar to a computer virus. Just as a computer virus is information that, if introduced into a computer, will cause the computer to malfunction, so a mind-virus is information that, if introduced into a person's brain, will cause the brain to malfunction.
The most outstanding example of a mind-virus spread by Australian universities is the "Animal Liberation" mind-virus. This mind-virus was invented by Professor Peter Singer, of Monash University. Professor Singer's resume reads like an assignment out of Mission Impossible - the "bad guy" who must be stopped at all costs. In 1975 Singer published a book called Animal Liberation, in which he advocated that animals had rights like humans. According to Singer, animals should not be eaten, experimented on, or otherwise exploited.
Singer's book gave rise to the "Animal Liberation" terrorist movement, which has blown up medical research laboratories around the world. In Oxford and Cambridge the police have special squads that deal exclusively with "Animal Liberation" terrorism. Singer must be the only terrorist leader in the world who is financed by a Western Government, through his professorial salary which is reimbursed to Monash University by the Australian Government. Having Singer as a Professor of Philosophy is like having Dr. Josef Mengele as a Professor of Anatomy.
The mechanism by which a mind-virus acts is similar to the mechanism used by a computer virus or a biological virus. The virus contains a portion that is recognised by the host, and which gives the host the impression that the virus is harmless. This allows the virus to insinuate itself into the host, rather like a burglar who has the key to the house he is about to rob. In the case of "Animal Liberation", this key is the notion that it is wrong to be cruel to animals. People think that "Animal Liberation" is like the RSPCA, so they swallow its doctrines hook, line and sinker.
The mind-virus most commonly spread by Australian universities is the "Political Correctness" mind-virus. "Political Correctness" was invented during the Second World War by propaganda experts working for the British Government. The basic idea of "Political Correctness" is that the aims and methods of the Nazis are evil. As with "Animal Liberation", "Political Correctness" has a key which allows itself to become insinuated into a person's mind. That key is the idea that genocide is wrong, an idea with which no-one would disagree.
The problem with "Political Correctness" is that the aims and methods of the Nazis were based on the aspirations and traditions of the German people. Moreover, these aspirations and traditions are not the exclusive property of the German people, but are also the aspirations and traditions of the British people, the Australian people, the American people, the Japanese people, the Chinese people, and in fact just about every culture in the world. These aspirations and traditions are not simply garbage; they arose either by a process of natural selection or by being invented by philosophers. In many cases there are good reasons for these "politically incorrect" aspirations and traditions.
The practical effect of "Political Correctness" is to rule out solutions to the problems facing society. Some examples of the solutions that have been ruled out by "Political Correctness" are the Chinese "one child" policy, the segregation of Hutus and Tutsis until they can be educated not to hate each other, compulsory military training, the death penalty, the use of "truth serum" to question suspected criminals, the use of cloning and genetic engineering to improve the human species, nuclear energy, and the goods and services tax. Australian universities are supposed to be promoting the "best practice" way of doing things, but instead they are promoting a dogma that precludes the use of "best practice".
The Australian Union of Students seeks that Australian universities be disinfected of "Political Correctness" and other mind-viruses. The following university departments are considered to be infected by mind-viruses: Australian Studies, Education, Gay and Lesbian Studies, Government, History, Industrial Relations, Journalism, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Psychiatry, Psychology, Sociology and Womens Studies. Many of these subjects are worthwhile areas of study, but the teaching and research being done in these areas by Australian universities is of no value, and is positively harmful. The extent of the problem is such that the academic staff of the above-mentioned departments should be dismissed, and replaced by real experts from overseas.
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There should be some sort of qualification that distinguishes people of above-average ability and knowledge from people of average ability and knowledge. Such a qualification would provide two benefits. First, it would provide a goal for people to strive for, encouraging them to high performance. Secondly, it would make it easy for decision-makers to identify the people of superior ability who they should listen to and rely on.
In the submission of the Australian Union of Students, the degree should be the qualification that identifies above-average ability. In recent years, however, the university degree has become devalued, and degrees have been issued to anyone who completes a full-time tertiary course of two years or more. This process has been driven by a desire on the part of head teachers at colleges of advanced education to call themselves "Professors".
In some social circles, a professorship has the same social status as a peerage. Paul Keating turned down an Order of Australia, but accepted an honorary doctorate and a professorship. Some people would rather earn the title by getting their collection of prefabs renamed a university than by making some discovery of lasting value to mankind. Since even people of below-average ability need to do long tertiary courses these days, this has meant that everyone and his dog is getting a degree.
In our view, people who complete a tertiary course should get a diploma as a general rule. Only people of exceptional ability should get a degree. To restore the degree to its proper status as an indication of above-average ability, Australian universities should cancel many of the degrees which they have issued, and arrange for a polytechnic diploma to be issued instead. For example, nurses should not have degrees, unless their medical knowledge is so extensive that they qualify for medical degrees. In that case, they are by definition doctors and not nurses.
Graduates who have not lived up to what is expected of a university graduate should also have their degrees cancelled. Arts graduates who are in the long-term unemployed are obviously not people of above-average ability, and should not have degrees. A Bachelor of Arts graduate in the long-term unemployed should have the degree cancelled and be issued with a Diploma of Arts from a polytechnic.
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Tertiary students of above-average ability and those of average ability should go to different educational institutions. Above-average students are above-average because they have an above-average attitude to work, and are prepared to put study ahead of recreation. If above-average students are mixed with average students, above-average students will come under peer pressure from average students to take on the lifestyle of average students, involving less study and more recreation. This is not conducive to Australia becoming the clever country that we want it to become.
Students of above-average ability should go to educational institutions called universities, and students of average and below-average ability should go to educational institutions called polytechnics. We have no particular attachment to the term "polytechnic", except that it has fewer words than "college of advanced education". If universities admitted only above-average students, there would not need to be as many universities. The Australian Union of Students proposes that there should be only the following universities in Australia:
The University of Sydney
The University of New South Wales
The University of Melbourne
The University of Victoria
The University of Brisbane
The University of Queensland
The University of Adelaide
The University of South Australia
The University of Perth
The University of Western Australia
The University of Hobart
The University of Canberra
The University of Darwin
The Australian National University should be renamed "The University of Canberra". The University of Canberra should be renamed "Canberra Polytechnic". Macquarie University should be renamed "Macquarie Polytechnic" (considering Macquarie's inconsequential role in history, he hardly deserves having a university named after him). Bond University should be renamed "Bond Polytechnic". The Australian Catholic University should be renamed "Australian Catholic Polytechnic". The University of Technology, Sydney, should be amalgamated with the Sydney Institute of Technology and renamed "Sydney Polytechnic". Likewise with other universities.
Only universities should be able to award degrees. The words "university" and "degree" should become certification trade marks jointly owned by the above thirteen universities. There is nothing wrong, however, with a university making an arrangement with a polytechnic for the university to award degrees to students who complete a certain diploma course at the polytechnic. For example, students who complete a Diploma of Law from Bond Polytechnic could qualify for a Bachelor of Law degree from The University of Queensland, assuming the Bond course was of a sufficient standard.
We propose that anyone could set up a polytechnic provided they had the necessary financial resources. To become a polytechnic, a company would have to apply under the Corporations Law, which should be amended accordingly, and show that the company met certain minimum financial and personnel requirements. Upon the company becoming a polytechnic, it would adopt a statutory memorandum of association, and take on a name ending in "Polytechnic" instead of "Limited". Anyone should be able to set up a "School" to provide primary or secondary education in much the same way.
Universities should have a prominent role in occupational licencing. An occupational licencing law should provide for the members of the commission regulating the particular occupation or profession to be appointed by the universities in the particular State or Territory and not by the Government. For example, the members of the Building Services Corporation in New South Wales should be appointed half by The University of Sydney and half by The University of New South Wales. An occupational licencing law should also authorise universities to make bylaws providing that graduates with certain degrees qualify automatically to practice certain occupations. For example, a graduate with a Bachelor of Medicine degree would qualify automatically as a registered medical practitioner and as a registered nurse.
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The problem we identified earlier, of Australian universities promoting "Political Correctness" instead of knowledge, stems from University Councils being appointed by Governments. Governments are run by political parties, which are in turn run by minority groups, which use universities as tools to promote their propaganda, at the expense of the mission of promoting knowledge and "best practice". Just as Governments should not be involved in running industry and telecommunications, so Governments should not run higher education. Universities should be privatised, by giving control of them to academics.
University Councils should be elected by senior academics called Fellows. To become a Fellow, an academic should have to be elected as a Fellow by existing Fellows. Upon universities being privatised, the initial Fellows of the university should be the Professors of the university, with the exception of the Professors of the departments that we mentioned earlier, who we said should be dismissed. Representatives of academic staff unions, non-academic staff unions, and student associations, should be entitled to attend University Council meetings, and speak at such meetings, but should not be entitled to vote.
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A number of Australian universities recently announced that they had joined an exclusive international association of elite universities. One of these self-styled elite universities was The University of New South Wales. The University of New South Wales routinely admits students with a tertiary entrance rank of less than 50; in other words, students who are below-average, who sit at the back of lecture theatres and chatter. Such students could only get into Harvard or Yale if they were Olympic athletes, crown princes, or their parents donated a million dollars to the university. In describing itself as an elite university, The University of New South Wales is like an American cult leader claiming to be Jesus Christ. The academics at The University of New South Wales can't even categorise their own university correctly.
While Australia doesn't have an elite university at present, this is definitely something that a country of our importance should have. Britain has a population of some 60 million, and has two elite universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Australia has a population of some 18 million, so can justify having only one elite university. Our association proposes The University of Sydney as the elite university, since it is the oldest university in the country, since Sydney is the most populous city, and since graduates of The University of Sydney are more influential than graduates of other universities.
To make an ordinary university into an elite university, it will be necessary to attract the world's leading academics and students. Although throwing money at a problem is never a good idea, an elite university cannot be run on a shoestring budget. As with the Olympic Games, if we want to attract the world's best, we will need to provide carte blanche funding. Academics will only want to move to Sydney from places like Stanford, MIT, Harvard and Yale if they can obtain funding to carry out research that they would not be able to carry out at their previous universities. Australian students will need incentives to move from their home cities to Sydney. We propose that students at the elite university be paid $10,000 a year more than students at ordinary universities. This will provide another incentive to work hard at school.
Degrees from The University of Sydney will need to be upgraded in status. Graduates from The University of Sydney should need to apply to a selection committee to keep their degrees. They will need to show that their examination results and subsequent achievements are worthy of graduates of an elite university. If a graduate of The University of Sydney is not deemed worthy or does not apply to keep the degree, this will be cancelled and replaced with an equivalent degree from The University of New South Wales. The selection committee will be made up of graduates of overseas elite universities.
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At present the Australian Government gives some of its research budget to universities in the form of higher education funding, and gives the remainder to Commonwealth agencies such as the CSIRO, the NHMRC, and ANSTO. The activities of these agencies could just as well be carried out by universities. These agencies should be privatised by transferring their staff and facilities to universities. For example, the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights should be transferred to The University of New South Wales, and ANSTO should become the University's Department of Nuclear Engineering.
Instead of having politicians and public servants decide how the Australian Government's research budget is allocated, we propose that this be determined by academics at the elite university. The entire research budget should be given to the elite university in a single untied grant. The University Council should then allocate the grant to individual departments of the elite university. A department of the elite university will retain the lion's share of the grant for itself (usually this will be less than 50% of the grant) to maintain its elite university status, and will allocate the remainder to the equivalent departments of the other Australian universities. The elite university will have to justify its use of the Australian Government's research budget in an annual report to Parliament.
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It is generally agreed that Australian financial institutions invest a far lower proportion of their funds in research and development projects than many of their overseas counterparts. What is it that Australian financiers know about research and development that their overseas counterparts don't know? We suggest that it is overseas financiers who are out of step, and who are not following international "best practice" when it comes to investing in research and development.
Australia is like a lifeboat. If people row in different directions, we will go nowhere. If people all rush over to one side of the boat, the boat will capsize. Just as people can't be allowed to walk into banks with guns and help themselves to the cash, so banks can't be allowed not to invest in research and development. It is not just something that affects banks. Their past failure to invest in research and development has led to a lower standard of living for all Australians.
The Australian Government should require Australian financial institutions to invest a minimum proportion of their funds in research and development projects involving universities. The minimum proportion should be determined on the basis of the proportion that overseas financial institutions consider prudent to invest in research and development. The projects will involve joint ventures, with shares in a joint venture company being held by a financial institution, a university, one or more academics at the university, and possibly also university students, polytechnics, polytechnic teachers, and polytechnic students. As with any partnership, the number of shares held by each participant in the joint venture will depend on the extent that each participant contributes to the venture.
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As far as most academics are concerned, the role of a student association is to act as a representative body, to convey the concerns of ordinary students to the university administration. This is not a very perceptive view of the role of student associations. Academics if nothing else are supposed to be perceptive. That is, academics are supposed to see things as they really are and not as they superficially appear to be. If academics were to wake up to what is going on around them, they would realise that the primary role of student associations is educational. Since students look on their elected student representatives as "knowing all the answers", student associations are in practice educational organisations that impart values to students.
Values are the most important form of knowledge. Consider the example of Albert Einstein. Einstein became a great scholar, but he might just as easily have become an ordinary factory worker, or a garbage man, or a serial killer, or an inventor of mind-viruses like Karl Marx or Peter Singer. The factor that made Einstein into a great scholar, and benefactor of mankind, was his superior values. Values are more important even than being able to read and write. An illiterate person with the right values will learn to read and write on his own initiative.
Once it is appreciated that values are the most important form of knowledge, and that the department of the university that imparts this knowledge is the student association, it will become clear that student associations are too important to be left to students to sort out. A university's policy towards its student association should aim to get the maximum educational benefit from the student association. If the university's policy is such that the student association ends up being taken over by Marxists, whose views are not exactly international "best practice", then the policy is wrong and needs to be changed.
A university should ensure that its student association has a constitution that will guarantee in practice that only mainstream students will ever be elected. The first feature that a good constitution should have is to forbid the student association from promoting Marxism or deviant forms of sexual activity, and to provide an effective legal mechanism to enforce this ban. The second feature that a constitution should have is direct representation instead of proportional representation, and to have the student council elected by delegates instead of by the students directly. Then, if any students with extreme views are elected, they can be prevented from getting onto the student council. The third feature is to require that all candidates for elected positions undergo a Course in Student Politics where they will be immunised against mind-viruses.
The Australian Union of Students Constitution has all of these features. These features are not undemocratic, since they don't completely preclude the possibility of students with extreme views being elected. If all of the students at a university were resolute Marxists, a Marxist student council would end up being elected. To get the maximum educational benefit, it is important that a student association appear to be democratic, and have all the window-dressing of a radical pressure group or trade union.
The Australian Union of Students is in fact a bona fide trade union, both legally, and any other way you care to look at it. This submission demonstrates that we are trying to secure better working conditions for students. We have proposed income support arrangements that are practicable and that will be of great benefit to students, and we will stop at nothing to secure these arrangements, even including the twelve-week paid overseas trip. Our secondary role as a trade union in no way conflicts with our primary role as an educational organisation.
Although the Australian Union of Students seeks to promote the same kind of good character traits that the Scout Association promotes, we also seek to promote a vision of the world fifty years from now. By convincing students and the general public of the validity of our vision, we will persuade them to co-operate to make this vision come true. We want the public to agree to pay higher taxes, and for these taxes to be used to fund medical research involving "genetic engineering" technology. In other words, just as "Conservation" has been the trendy issue of the 1970s and 1980s, we want "Genetic Engineering" to become the trendy issue of the 1990s and beyond.
This makes the Australian Union of Students a useful organisation for universities to have at their campuses. We are the only student association in existence that is capable of bring about an increase in government spending on university research. Other student associations would like to bring about such an increase, but don't have a plan. We have a plan, and that plan is to make "Genetic Engineering" a trendy issue.
It may seem fanciful that "Genetic Engineering" could become so trendy an issue that Australians would be prepared to pay an extra 10% of goods and services tax to spend on university research. Many academics are not aware of the possibilities of "Genetic Engineering" technology. It is an area that even science fiction writers have not adequately explored. We will briefly explain these possibilities so as to show how "Genetic Engineering" can become a trendy issue.
Most academics have heard of "Gene Therapy". This is a strategy for curing simple genetic diseases such as diabetes. Diabetes is caused by a defect in the gene for insulin. Using "Genetic Engineering", it is possible to synthesise a harmless virus containing the correct gene for insulin. This virus is then injected into the patient's pancreas. The virus insinuates itself into all the cells, and corrects the genetic defect. As a result, the patient's pancreas starts to produce insulin, and the patient is completely cured.
"Gene Therapy" in a more sophisticated form will one day transform life as we know it. This will require, however, massive government spending on research, and improvements in technologies that are related to "Genetic Engineering". The most important technologies that will assist "Genetic Engineering" are as follows:
"Laboratory Automation"
This means that "Genetic Engineering" experiments will be carried out automatically by robots. A scientist will use a computer to request an experiment, the experiment will be automatically carried out, and the scientist will get back a computer file containing the results of the experiment.
"Molecular Modelling"
This means that some experiments, instead of being done in a laboratory, will be done by computer simulation, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of a real experiment.
"Artificial Intelligence"
This means that computers will design "Genetic Engineering" experiments, order the experiments to be carried out, and analyse the results, and thereby work out the purpose of every gene in the human body, so that we will know as much about the human body as we do about an aircraft. It also means that computers will design improvements to the human body, and work out the genetic instructions to give effect to the improvements.
Using a combination of "Genetic Engineering", "Laboratory Automation", "Molecular Modelling" and "Artificial Intelligence", and with the help of a substantial proportion of the Gross National Product of every developed country in the world, it will be possible to develop the ultimate form of "Gene Therapy" - the "Cure for Everything". The "Cure for Everything" will consist of a suspension of cells, containing chromosomes, that can be injected into the human body. These cells will operate on the same principle as the virus that will be injected into patients to cure diabetes. The cells will multiply and insinuate themselves into every cell in the person's body. There they will add their chromosomes to the person's natural chromosomes, thereby changing the person from a human being into an entirely new species.
It will take several months for the new chromosomes to make their presence felt. The person will undergo physical changes, and will be noticably different in appearance. Apart from this, the person will experience no ill-effects. The person will still be able to have children. As a result of the new chromosomes and the physical changes, the person and his or her descendants will have the following design features that humans do not have:
Regeneration of organs
For example, if an arm is amputated, it will grow back again, or if a tooth is removed, a new tooth will grow in its place.
Immunity from disease
Resistance to radiation and chemicals
One race
All people will be of one race, regardless of their previous race, and the new race will be different in appearance to any existing race.
No sleep
The brain will be redesigned to operate 24 hours a day without getting sleepy.
Built-in knowledge
Babies will have instinctive skills such as being able to talk, walk and swim.
Computational ability
People will be able to solve complex mathematical problems using an organ in their brain similar to an electronic calculator.
Sense of time and direction
People will have a direction-sensing organ similar to a carrier pigeon, and an accurate built-in biological clock.
Eternal youth
People will not grow old; people only grow old now because the genetic instructions make no provision for staying young.
New instincts
The existing ego and libido instincts will be replaced by more useful instincts.
Having eternal youth will be extremely useful, and people will consider their taxes well spent on something that gives them a realistic chance of living forever. But no less important will be the new instincts that will be programmed into peoples' brains:
Family instinct
People will instinctively want to live with a permanent spouse of the opposite gender and raise children.
Work instinct
Same as the "work ethic".
Honesty instinct
People will be incapable of committing crimes.
Co-operation instinct
People will defer to the wishes of others unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. Hence war will be impossible.
Sanity instinct
This instinct will suppress dysfunctional thoughts and mind-viruses.
Religious instinct
It is immaterial whether people have faith in God because they have been brought up that way, or because they have been biologically programmed to.
When the Australian Union of Students promotes "Genetic Engineering" as the trendy issue of the 1990s and beyond, what we are promoting is a perfect world in which there is no death, disease, crime, war, or anything else objectionable. Moreover, this is not something that is continguent on the second coming of Christ or visits by UFOs. It is using advanced medical technology to turn people from ordinary human beings into "supermen" or "angels".
We are confident that the members of the Review Committee will recognise that our vision for the next fifty years is a realistic vision. Certainly the changes in technology in the members' lifetimes - the last fifty years or so - have been no less fantastic. We offer the following arrangement to the Review Committee. If the Review Committee will use its influence - with the Australian Government, State and Territory Governments, university academics, and school principals - to make the Australian Union of Students the compulsory student association at all tertiary educational institutions and secondary schools in Australia, we will not only do everything possible to ensure that students have happy and productive lives, but we will also use our influence to secure research funding for Australian universities beyond the Review Committee's wildest dreams.
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